Wednesday, May 26, 2010

London: Kew Gardens

Well we spent the whole day at the Royal Botanical Gardens. When I say the whole day, we were there at least 6 hours exploring the 300 acres. It's a large park with several glass houses. After the garden we went the famous department store Harrods. That place was insane. They had everything! Even Krispy Kreme which is kind of scary actually. After dinner we attended the Ceremony of Keys at the Tower of London. Since a solemn and special event, there are no photographs allowed during the ceremony. Take a look at our day! *Warning: There are quite a few pictures to follow*

This is the Temperate House. It's a Victorian glass greenhouse.

And here is a view of the inside. They have it divided up into N. America, Asia and S. America.

What's pretty cool is you can walk up this spiral staircase and get a treetop view inside.

There were all sorts of cool plants and flowers including this type of lily (sorry I never found a name plate for this one).

Another highlight was the various Dells that were filled with the quintessential English Bluebells.

They also have a tree top walkway, it was a bit scary for me.

The Palm House held many types of tropical plants.

Next the Palm House was a smaller glass greenhouse which housed GINORMOUS water lilies.

They had beautiful azaleas. This one is called Golden Eagle and it smells amazing. (no it wasn't raining, I realized my head was getting sunburned).

The Princess of Wales Conservatory has various plants but the main attraction is the butterfly farm.

Check out this huge moth!

Guess what he's mimicking.

I have lots of good luck, this guy sat on my leg for several minutes.

Here's a picture of an emerging Luna Moth. They have large case in which you can view many different types of chrysalis and emerging moths and butterflies.

Oh and these really cute ducklings we saw by one of the lakes. Not sure what type of duck?

What a shot! Beautiful moon rising over the Bridge before we went in for the ceremony.

Me with one of the warders who was actually our guide for the day time tour yesterday. Nice guy.

1 comment:

  1. Those gardens looked beautiful. I love the giant lilypad and the butterfly landing on your leg! How fun!

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